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Comment I obviously missed something (Score 1) 260

US Constitution, Article 2, Section 2, paragraph 2:
"He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur..."

This seems pretty explicit to me. I do not understand what the administration's argument is here. And none of the critical articles I have read mention this clause. It's as if this isn't the standing issue here. Can someone explain to me how the President can legally sign a treaty without a senate vote?

Comment Libertarian Establishment (Score 2, Insightful) 944

The reason behind this is simple: Libertarians (or at least the "think tank" Establishment branch of them) equate freedom with being able to make as much money for yourself as you can, and do with that money whatever you please.

The problem with FOSS in their eyes is that it prevents the proprietary software companies from making as much money as they want.

They don't want a "free market" in the classical sense. To them "free market" means "free to be anti-competitive and free from government safety/environmental regulations."

They only care about making money for themselves, and to hell with everyone else.

A true free-market economy is as much of a pipe dream as a true Communist one. Greed and lust for power corrupt both of these ideologies before they ever get fully established.

I'll grant that many rank-and-file Libertarians do not think this way, but the most vocal part of the Libertarian movement sure seems to.
Networking

Major ISPs Seek To Lower Broadband Definition 426

denobug sends word that major internet service providers in the US are seeking to redefine the term 'Broadband' to mean a much lower speed than in other developed nations. In recent filings with the FCC, Comcast and AT&T both came out in support of a reduced minimum speed. 'AT&T said regulators should keep in mind that not all applications like voice over internet protocol (VoIP) or streaming video, that require faster speeds, are necessarily needed by unserved Americans.' On the other hand, Verizon argued to maintain the status quo, saying that 'It would be disruptive and introduce confusion if the commission were to now create a new and different definition.' A public interest group called Free Press also filed comments with the FCC, recommending that the bar should be set significantly higher, and evolve in a way that corresponds with technological improvements.

Comment GM used to build locomotives (Score 1) 897

GM actually used to build locomotives. Remember those old-school carbody diesels? The ones with the bulldog noses? Those F-Units were build by GM's Electro-Motive Division, or EMD. GM Sold EMD to PE firms in 2005. EMD I believe is now based in Canada. WMD mainly builds in Mexico, though this happened under GM's watch. Their major competitor is General Electric.
Power

Submission + - Use of asphalt paved surfaces for solar heat (yahoo.com)

vg30e writes: It seems that a company in the Netherlands has found a way to use asphalt paved surfaces as solar heat collectors. Flexible tubes under the surface of the road collect heat from asphalt pavement using water as the working liquid. The heated water is stored underground for later use in defrosting the road, or heating buildings. With all the miles of highway in the continental US, this might be a viable way of collecting massive amounts of thermal energy.
Robotics

Submission + - DARPA Semifinalists Selected

An anonymous reader writes: DARPA has selected thirty-six teams as Urban Challenge semifinalists to participate in the National Qualification Event. Both the webcast and press release can be found on the official site: here. Dr. Tony Tether reports that only 1 of the top 5 previous teams was rated in the top 5 of teams this year and 3 of the top 5 were not in the challenge finals last year.
Databases

Submission + - MySQL is closing off its source

vboulytchev writes: MySQL quietly let slip that it would no longer be distributing the MySQL Enterprise Server source as a tarball, not quite a year after the company announced a split between its paid and free versions. While the Enterprise Server code is still under the GNU General Public License (GPL), MySQL is making it harder for non-customers to access the source code. http://www.linux.com/feature/118489
Security

Worm Threat Forces Apple To Disable Software? 201

SkiifGeek writes "After the debacle that surrounded the announcement and non-disclosure of a worm that targets OS X, the vulnerability in mDNSResponder may have forced Apple to remove support for certain mDNSResponder capabilities with the recently released Security Update 2007-007. 'Seeming to closely follow the information disclosed by InfoSec Sellout, Apple's mDNSResponder update addresses a vulnerability that can be exploited by an attacker on the local network to gain a denial of service or arbitrary code execution condition. Apple goes on to identify that the vulnerability that they are addressing exists within the support for UPnP IGD... and that an attacker can exploit the vulnerability through simply sending a crafted network packet across the network. With the crafted network packet triggering a buffer overflow, it passes control of the vulnerable system to the attacker. Rather than patching the vulnerability and retaining the capability, Apple has completely disabled support for UPnP IGD (though there is no information about whether it is only a temporary disablement until vulnerabilities can be addressed).'"
Red Hat Software

Submission + - Red Hat to Enter the Desktop Market

head_dunce writes: "It looks like Red Hat is going to release their Global Desktop Linux in September and give Ubuntu a challenge for the Linux desktop market. I'm a little confused by the article though, it claims Red Hat Global Desktop "would be sold with a one-year subscription to security updates." Shouldn't the security updates be open, and the customer support be subscription based?"

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